Jan 1, 2013: NYT: Fiscal agreement still 'far too generous to the rich'

[seafan]

Happy. New. Year.


NY Times

January 1, 2013

For the first time since President George W. Bush began the country’s long slide into debt by cutting taxes in 2001, an agreement was reached late Monday in the Senate to raise income taxes on the rich.

.....

Nonetheless, this deal is a weak brew that remains far too generous to the rich and fails to bring in enough revenue to deal with the nation’s deep need for public investments. Given that the Bush-era tax cuts expire on Jan. 1, Republicans were forced to give ground on their philosophical opposition to higher taxes, but they made it impossible to reach a farsighted agreement that truly grappled with government’s role in fostering improvements to education, transportation and manufacturing.

The deal, hammered out by the Obama administration and Senate Republican leaders, raises income taxes to Clinton-era levels on families making more than $450,000 a year and individuals making $400,000. That’s a far cry from the $250,000 threshold that Mr. Obama said defined the upper range of the middle class in the campaign.

But White House officials said they had to compromise on that number to win renewal of several important provisions that would otherwise have expired: unemployment insurance for three million people, tax credits for low-income working families, and a reduction in the impact of the alternative minimum tax on many middle-class families. Republicans cynically used those vital measures as bargaining chips. (What was not a point of contention was allowing the payroll tax to go back up by 2 percent.)

The higher income threshold isn’t the only price the White House wound up paying. The estate tax on the nation’s biggest inheritances is going up slightly but not nearly enough (estates of more than $5 million would be taxed at 40 percent, up from the current 35 percent) in a big and unnecessary giveaway to the very richest families. Significantly, the estate tax rate would be made permanent, while the credits for low-income families would expire in five years. Capital gains and dividend tax rates go up to 20 percent from the current 15 percent, but again, only for families making more than $450,000 a year.

.....

We, the 99 percent, are no longer represented by our government.



This will undoubtedly be a very interesting year.

[Divine Discontent]

1. I agree... the deal looks decent and all, but when you chop out a sizable chunk of tax money from

the people making around 300-500K (I recall hearing that the 250K figure actually meant around 300K or so due to tax code laws) that are now not going to have their taxes raised are going to keep billions now, and maintain their super low tax rate compared to what they paid before Shrub. The USA has far too many problems to let those who make nearly a half million not see their taxes rise a couple percent to help maintain the nation's needs.

[No Elephants]

2. It's not a matter of being too generous to the rich. which sounds as though we want to

punish the rich.

Rather, it is a matter of not being anywhere near what the nation urgently needs.

You can have an undramatic increase in taxes on a portion of the income of the 2% and expect that to run the nation, at least not a nation that spends as much on "defense" as ours does.



I see nothing at all wrong with simply becoming rich, unless you do so by breaking the law.

Or, as one self help book title says, "I've been rich and I've been poor, and rich is better."



Even if Obama had gotten what he originally said he wanted, a relatively modest increase on individual income over $250K, it would not have been enough. He also offered to lower the tax rate, so I guess he got better than he requested.

And what did he get for his concession? Once again, almost nothing.

:banghead:

But, we're nowhere near done.

They are going to extend the sequester for two months. So the fiscal cliff kabuki continues for another two months, just when you thought you were safe.

:banghead:

Let's see what really happens between now and the Ides of March.



Someone on MSNBC yesterday from Congress-forgot who--said "of course" Congress would make everything retroactive to January 1.

Depending upon whether the retroactive item is a benefit or a detriment, making something retroactive "of course" might raise Constitutional issues.

Maybe that bit was on the page our Representatives skipped without even realizing it, when the House read the Constitution aloud after the 2010 mid-terms.

:banghead:


BTW,

We, the 99 percent, are no longer represented by our government.

Government on these shores represented, first, the Crown and the darlings of the Crown and Parliament, like the East india Company, and then the landed gentry of the United States

After the stock market crash of 1929, the rich, Joe Kennedy, for one, seriously thought the rest of us would go after them and kill them. I think that is why we got so much reform so fast in FDR's first 100 days. Soon, though, the deficit hawks began to feel comfortable again and began cutting, which is when Depression set in again.

Let me say that again: They instituted reform when, and only when, and only because, they thought they were going to be murdered (and thought they probably deserved to be, for what the huge transfer of wealth they had gotten away with and for destroying the economy).

Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty was a different story. But, they kept cutting back and cutting back from that, and now we are going to cut both FDR's Social Security and LBJ's Medicare. With a Democrat sitting in the Oval Office.

;banghead:


Happy Fucking New Year.

And I doubt anyone worried about murderous mobs when wealth transfers occurred steadily from 1980 to the present, with a huge blip in 2008, aka TARP, okayed by both Bush and then President Elect Obama. With then presumptive Secretary of Treasury Geithner telling Dodd not to put anything about executive bonuses into the law. And Dodd obeying, because, after all, Dodd's constituency was Obama, not the citizens of the U.S. or even of Connecticut. (And Dodd tried to have it both ways by making Geithner's directive public.)

:banghead:



You remember Dodd, right? He was part of the 2008 Democratic Presidential field, which was repeatedly described then by Democrats and their media personality "strategists" as 'an embarrassment of riches." Don't know about the riches bit, but read Dodd's wiki. Lots to be embarrassed about, that's for sure.


BTW, where is Dodd now? http://www.mpaa.org/about/ceo

Funny how many former politicians, especially Democrats, end up heading motion picture groups. I wonder what qualifies them to head those organizations?

:banghead:

Okay, there are only so many banghead emoticon-worthy statements this coffee addict can take in one post before her first cup of coffee of 2013.

[Enthusiast]

3. I'm with you. Happy Fucking New Years!

:banghead:

[No Elephants]

4. Forgot to mention. These tax cuts are permenent. No two years. No ten years.

They never expire on their own.

Maybe someday, some Congress will repeal all or some of them, but how likely is that?

I'm thinkin' Mr. Moderate Republican is to the right of Reagan.